John Day

The charismatic Naseeruddin Shah and Randeep Hooda keep you hooked to this thriller

John Day is a bloody thriller frequently overlaid with the words of Jesus. Contextually, this is of course a paradox, but that the passages quoted in the film’s voiceover are all connected with this Prophet’s consistently anti-material stance appears interesting. The film is about a series of murders committed to grab property worth hundreds of crores, and when the film ends, with the entire cast dead and John Day still standing, we hear the words: “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul.”

‘Casablanca’ is the property in the name of which everyone goes berserk in John Day. The movie starts off with a young girl and boy hiking in a bone dry forest near Lonavala and encroaching on this land. This sequence ends abruptly, and the next scene is John Day (Naseeruddin Shah) burying his daughter. We learn later that the forest was deliberately set on fire that very day the kids were hiking, and in a bizarre and convoluted series of events, Mr Day, a bank manager, gets involved in a murder mystery.

Meanwhile, a cop gone bad (Randeep Hooda), strides across the screen. He is psychologically disturbed, both by his past and his present. He was molested as a boy and has never been able to come to terms with his childhood trauma. Now he has money and a very pretty girlfriend (Elena Kazan), but she is an alcoholic and he just can’t handle her addiction.

With a few additions and some alterations, John Day rips off Box 507, Enrique Urbizu’s 2002 film in Spanish. With all his enthusiasm for Biblical messages, director Ahishor Solomon could have paid some attention to one of the Ten Commandments—‘Thou shalt not steal’—but unfortunately, he just skipped the ‘Decalogue’.

Damnation done, you have to say that the charisma of the two central actors holds you to your seat till the end.

Naseeruddin ShahRandeep Hoodathriller